Disable the ambient light sensor

(Disabling the ALS)
(Re-enabling the ALS)
Line 17: Line 17:
  sudo gainroot
  sudo gainroot
  sed -ie 's/brightness-simple/brightness-als/' /etc/mce/mce.ini
  sed -ie 's/brightness-simple/brightness-als/' /etc/mce/mce.ini
-
Then reboot and the backlight will once again be influenced by the ALS.
+
killall mce
 +
No reboot is required for the new setting to take effect.
 +
 
 +
The backlight will once again be influenced by the ALS.
==References==
==References==

Revision as of 20:52, 21 February 2011

The N900 contains a Taos TSL2563[1] Ambient Light Sensor (ALS). This light sensor is used to auto-adjust the screen brightness relative to your preferred brightness setting. Some users may find this auto-adjusting to be annoying, when the screen dims every time you hold your finger over the screen, or trying to use the phone outdoors.

Contents

Prerequisites

You will need to install the rootsh package.

Disabling the ALS

TMO user dr_frost_dk discovered[2] a simple way to disable the ALS:

sudo gainroot
sed -ie 's/brightness-als/brightness-simple/' /etc/mce/mce.ini
killall mce

No reboot is required for the new setting to take effect.

Please note that the actual ALS device is not disabled; it still functions and can be used by other applications. This setting only disables its influence on the screen's backlight.

Re-enabling the ALS

If you want to change back to the original setting:

sudo gainroot
sed -ie 's/brightness-simple/brightness-als/' /etc/mce/mce.ini
killall mce

No reboot is required for the new setting to take effect.

The backlight will once again be influenced by the ALS.

References

  1. http://natisbad.org/N900/n900-commented-hardware-specs.html
  2. http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=947958&postcount=97